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Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

quiet

Winter is a Time for Rest

January 22, 2018 By Michelle

As I write this, snow is blowing horizontally across my backyard. The wind is whipping the white pine boughs, and the bird feeders are swaying precariously on their shepherd’s poles.

Two downy woodpeckers clutch the finch feeder for dear life, waiting out the gusts until it is safe enough to peck for seed again. The juncos are tucked deep in the bare lilac shrub, seven of them, plump like black and white fruit. In between gusts they pepper the ground beneath the feeder until something startles them and they swoop altogether into the shrub again.

I’ve just returned from some errands. Nothing that couldn’t wait – the post office, Walgreen’s, the library to drop off two not-yet-due books. The errands were an excuse to go out, because the truth is, I love driving in a snowstorm.

There’s something about inching along at 25 mph, both hands on the wheel, zipped into my cozy parka, heat blasting from the dashboard vents, knit hat snug over my ears, crunch of snow under the tires. I find it strangely relaxing.

 

There were few cars on the road, and those who dared brave the weather crawled along, wipers shushing, windows fogging, snow trailing from their roofs like wisps streaming off a mountain peak. I feel a kinship with these weather-be-damned wanderers. Some are undoubtedly on the road because they have to be, some simply because they want to be, like me.

When I stepped through the automatic doors of Walgreen’s I saw the store was empty, save a mom and her daughter. The girl was sick; I could tell by her red-rimmed nose and glassy eyes. A fuzzy, pink robe hung below her jacket. “What a disappointment to be sick on a snow day,” the pharmacy clerk said to her, smiling sympathetically as the girl leaned heavily against the counter.

The post office was empty too, and that never happens. I strode directly up to the counter and in two minutes flat made the arrangements to mail my package. I wondered if the clerk thought it odd that I chose book rate, the slowest delivery method, yet braved a blizzard to get to the post office today. I didn’t offer an explanation for my seemingly contradictory actions.

Back on the road, the snow and wind had worsened. Earlier, when I had looked at the weather-in-motion radar image on my laptop, the storm swirled, an impressive swath of blue over most of Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota. Instead of moving west to east across the Great Plains like storms in this part of the country typically do, it was circling counter clockwise, like a hurricane. Clearly I had departed my house in the eye and was now being lashed by the tail.

I turned the car toward home.

I used to detest winter, and I still don’t like when the temperature is so frigid that I can’t even walk the dog. But in recent years I’ve found the winter months are growing on me.

January and February’s calendar pages offer a welcome white space that matches the austere emptiness of the outdoors. My days are generally quieter, my social and work life less frenetic. Most evenings I’m happy to be buttoned into my flannels by 7, in bed by 9, an open book propped on my chest.

By mid-March I’ll be anxious to get into the garden. I always have to hold myself back from bagging up the dead oak leaves that blanket the flower beds, so eager am I to plunge my hands into still-chilled soil, to uncover tender green shoots.

But for now I am content to stay cocooned, quiet and slow, resting, like a papery tulip bulb biding its time deep beneath the dirt.

Filed Under: quiet, rest Tagged With: driving in a snowstorm, winter quiet

What I’m Learning from My Social Media Fast

March 14, 2017 By Michelle

It started with a purple slip of paper on which I’d penned one word.

“Distraction.”

“What is keeping you from growing in your relationship with God?” my pastor had asked at the beginning of the Ash Wednesday service. “What sin is standing in the way?”

I wrote the word “distraction” on my purple slip of paper and dropped it into the basket as I walked forward to receive the ashy cross.

Smart phone in hand, I spend a lot of my in-between time scrolling and swiping, liking and emoting, clicking and skimming. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, email — I go from one to the other and back again, my eyes on a two-inch by four-inch screen. In line at the post office, in the dentist’s waiting room, idling at the curb at my son’s middle school, swiping and scrolling, liking and emoting, clicking and skimming.

Distraction.

I vowed to give up social media for Lent in the middle of the Ash Wednesday service. It wasn’t my intention. I hadn’t seen it coming. I haven’t “given up” anything for Lent in years, but the moment I scrawled “distraction” on my purple paper, I knew: social media had to go.

I did not go gently. I argued with God for most of the service. I bargained for Instagram. But it seemed pretty clear; it had to be an all-or-nothing fast. When I got home, I moved all my social media icons on my phone to the very last screen, four swipes in. I’d be less likely to see them there, less tempted to tap.

I noticed the birds first.

Sitting in a sunny spot in my front yard two days after Ash Wednesday, eyes closed, my face tipped toward the early spring sun, I heard the birds, an indistinguishable cacophony of twitters and cackles from the trees, the roof, the power lines. I listened as the blur of chatter began to separate into distinct calls — the screech of a blue jay, tap of a nuthatch on a tree trunk, scuffle of sparrows in the rafters, melodious house finch in the backyard.

More sounds announced themselves while I sat with my eyes closed.

Wind in the white pines, snapping cloth of the neighbor’s American flag, thrum of a bass from a nearby car, skitter of dried leaves cartwheeling across the concrete, chain saw buzzing in the distance.

It had been a long time since I’d listened to the sounds of my neighborhood.

There have been moments like this in the last two weeks. Moments when I listen and breathe. Moments when my soul is stilled.

But mostly, nearly two weeks in, I still get itchy fingers in those in-between times. I’m restless, a low-level agitation humming below the surface.

It’s a near-constant act of discipline to leave my phone in my purse.

Fighting writer’s block, I will myself not to check Facebook or Twitter. Instead, I look out the window. One day, struggling to write the notes for an upcoming talk, I spent most of the afternoon gazing out the French doors into the dull gray of my backyard.

This might sound like a lovely picture of peace. It wasn’t. It was frustrating and boring.

And lonely.

I hadn’t expected the loneliness. I don’t miss the politics. The caustic comments. I don’t miss clicking and skimming until my brain fogs with a swirl of facts and opinions. But I do miss my friends – the real relationships that have formed across the cyberwaves. I miss the pretty pictures of sunsets and vacations and birthday celebrations. I miss the conversations, the random musings, the bits of goodness scattered here and there.

I spend a lot of time on social media in my everyday, ordinary life. Some of it is necessary for my work. Some of it is good for my well-being. Most of it is not. It’s one thing to know this in theory. It’s another thing entirely to understand it in the day-to-day.

So for now I’m listening to the birds and the whisper of white pines in the wind. I’m looking out the window into my gray backyard. And I’m waiting for whatever, if anything, might rise from the depths to the surface.

Filed Under: Lent, listening, quiet Tagged With: Lent, social media fast

Weekend One Word: Spacious

October 21, 2016 By Michelle

Weekend One Word: Spacious

I think “spacious” might have been the Weekend One Word in the past, but I couldn’t help but choose it again this week. I read these words in The Message yesterday morning, and I knew I had the perfect photo to accompany them from a walk I took with Noah out on the prairie last weekend.

These words got me thinking about how I pay attention, or don’t pay attention, to God. For me, God’s presence is more readily accessible when I go small, still, and quiet. I don’t necessarily like to stop. My productivity-driven personality constantly urges me to stay busy. But I’ve learned, particularly in the past year, that when I fill much of the white space in my life with social media, and when I let my to-do list be the boss of me, my soul suffers.

Giving myself the gift of time and space, especially time spent out in nature, every day, even if only five minutes, is critically important for my spiritual health. Lifting my eyes and broadening my mind from the confines of my to-do list and the narrowness of social media to the expansive spaciousness of the greater world around me helps to infinitely broaden my perspective. I simply cannot stand in the middle of a tallgrass prairie, surrounded by land and sky, or even in the middle of my own backyard beneath the gently bowed branches of the river birch tree, and not feel immeasurably lighter, smaller (in a good way) and more free. Paying attention to his creation is one of the ways I pay attention to God. Being outdoors is, literally and spiritually, my spacious place.

You might very well be drawn to a different way of paying attention to God. Maybe for you it’s connecting in person with a close group of friends. Or singing praises with your church community on Sunday morning. Or serving supper to the homeless at your local shelter.  Whatever it is, you’ll recognize it as a place and way you connect with God because of the way it makes you feel — not confined, not pressed in, not weary, but open, spacious, and free.

I hope you are able to spend time in that place this weekend, friends. Give that gift to God and to yourself.

Filed Under: One Word, quiet

Why You Need a Buffer Zone

April 7, 2016 By Michelle

I pass a sign on my regular walk with Josie. It stands a few feet from a creek, surrounded by tall grass, a few cat tails, and a handful of oak and bald cypress trees. I’ve read the sign dozens of times as I’ve passed by, but I’ve only recently thought about what it really means.

It’s an odd sign, slender and tall, with just two words on it: buffer zone. There’s a sticker under the two words that reads “Rain to Recreation.” Turns out, Rain to Recreation is a “watershed management” program to reduce flooding, protect water quality and the environment. The buffer zone is the native vegetation that borders the creek and serves to stabilize the banks and filter trash and other pollutants from the storm run-off.

Buffer Zone

I’ve been thinking a lot about this notion of a buffer zone lately. Greg McKeown writes about the importance of buffer zones in his book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. Buffer zones, he says, “reduce the friction caused by the unexpected.”

We’ve all rubbed up against that friction, haven’t we? Often it’s something small – we run the red light because we’re late to soccer practice. We squeeze in one more email before logging out, one more phone call before turning out the office lights. We toss in one more load of laundry before hurtling across town to the dentist.

We say yes to PTO and church council and helping out with the local cancer fundraiser. We accept the extra hours or the additional project foisted on us at work, even though we’re already maxed out. We agree to enroll in the spinning class with our BFF, join a monthly dinner club with our neighbors and serve at the local soup kitchen every other week.

All these things feel good and are important. In and of themselves, they are smallish. How could this one extra thing or two possibly push me over the edge? we reason. And so we say yes. And yes. And yes again.

We say yes out of guilt or obligation or desire or because, as Greg McKeown surmises, we assume the best-case scenario. We assume all the tiny details will fall into perfect place. We don’t leave any wiggle room for the traffic jam, the sick kid, the snag in the “simple” project. We don’t leave any room for those times when the creek overflows its banks.

DSC_0115

sunflower

hay

half sunflower

Rowan in grass

The best-case scenario with my little neighborhood creek is that it never overflows its banks in a roiling rage of flooding water. But the reality is that sometimes it rains hard for days on end, and the water needs a safe place to go where it won’t erode the land and damage roads, bridges and pathways. That’s why landscapers and conservation experts create buffer zones. And that’s why we should do the same.

As much as I can, I aim to live in that metaphorical grassy space surrounding my neighborhood creek by building as much buffer zone into my life as possible. This means I’m one of those people who arrives 20 minutes before a doctor’s appointment. I typically sit at the gate an hour before boarding my flight. I turn in writing projects days, if not weeks, before the deadline (case in point: I submitted my Luther manuscript to my editor two weeks early…which, I admit, paradoxically made me feel like a slacker).

I build this buffer zone into almost every part of my life not only to keep myself sane, but also to ensure that I have pockets of quiet and silence here and there. Allowing my mind to wander even for a few minutes is important for my creativity, my sense of well-being and the state of my soul. Building a healthy buffer zone reduces friction (i.e. stress) caused by the unexpected.

Which isn’t to say friction won’t ever happen. It will rain hard. The creek will overflow. But I do what I can to ensure the extra water has a place to go.

So tell me, are you a buffer zone kind of person? Do you have margin, white space around the edges of your life for those times the creek overflows? Or is your life jam-packed to the hilt with no wiggle room at all? {you can be honest; I won’t judge…there are plenty of times my life is packed to the hilt too!}

Filed Under: quiet, slow Tagged With: buffer zones, Essentialism, Greg McKeown

The Gift of Quiet and Still {and a giveaway of Roots & Sky}

March 3, 2016 By Michelle

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This morning I sliced three whisper-thin slivers from the frozen ginger root, dropped them into the bottom of my favorite mug and poured boiling water over them, watching as they bobbed to the surface like tiny life preservers. I filled a plastic measuring spoon with honey and dipped it in and out of the hot water, the thick amber coating thinning translucent with each plunge. I added a splash of lemon juice and then let the mixture steep before finally fishing out the sodden ginger slivers with a teaspoon and flicking them into the sink.

I have a cold, and even though “it’s only a cold,” this one happens to be of the apocalyptic variety. My neighbor swore by this ginger-honey-lemon tea remedy when I saw her late Monday afternoon. It was the first time I’d been outdoors in three days. When I spoke, my voice croaked with laryngitis, and my throat burned raw, like I’d swallowed a fistful of broken glass. I’ve been dutifully slicing and steeping ever since. I’m not sure it’s working, but at least there is something comforting in the routine – pungent scent of ginger, sharp lemon quieted with sweet honey, hands wrapped around the warm mug.

mug2

I’ve been yearning for silence and stillness lately. Ever since I turned the Luther book in to my editor (yes, I did!), I’ve felt restless. An unhealthy energy seems to hum just below the surface, under my skin. I feel anxious, edgy. When I found myself scrolling through the website for the Benedictine monastery a few hours up the road, I thought I’d happened upon a solution: a weekend of contemplative silence. Time to settle, to sort through some questions that have been pinging around my head, to quiet the thrumming.

And then I got sick.

Initially I was angry. The day I woke sneezing, throat screaming, the temperature neared 70 degrees here in Nebraska. The chickadees, clearly confused, abandoned their winter staccato and trilled their two-note summer salute. Bedroom sheers wafted in the breeze of open windows. Neighbors grilled burgers and hot dogs on their back patios, kids flung open garage doors and pumped air into bicycle tires…and I was stuck in bed.

I don’t readily take to my bed. I tend to power through most illnesses, bent on ticking items off my to-do list, refusing to succumb to mere bodily complaint. But this cold sat me down and told me straight up who was boss, and I had no choice but to listen.

The funny thing was, once I surrendered to it, I realized my illness was actually an unexpected gift. It offered me the quiet, contemplative retreat I’d been yearning for, and I didn’t even have to leave my own home to find it. I spent the day under my nana’s hand-crocheted afghan, the March issue of Better Homes and Gardens on my lap. When I tired of that, I dozed. I wrote in my journal and listened to the chickadees through the open window. I read the Midday Office from The Divine Hours. I blew my nose and sipped water and dozed some more.

The boys were outside, enjoying the beautiful day I was missing. The house was still. I lay in bed and listened to the clock tick and the questions inside my own head, and I stayed that way for hours. It was a retreat, albeit a sniffly one, and I was grateful.

Roots and Sky_cover (003)So I know I already wrote about Christie Purifoy’s beautiful book Roots & Sky, but a couple of days ago the UPS truck pulled up to the curb and the man in the brown shirt and brown pants dropped an envelope into my front door. Inside were three copies of Roots & Sky, and I am delighted to be able to give away TWO of those copies on the blog today (the other I’m sending to a loved one back in Massachusetts). Resting in the quiet of my home all day on Saturday and Sunday reminded me so much of Christie’s story, which centers around the passing of time and seasons, so it seems fitting to offer her book with this blog post today. {Email subscribers: visit the blog by clicking here to enter the giveaway}
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Filed Under: quiet Tagged With: quiet, Roots and Sky

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a Triple Type A, “make it happen” (my dad’s favorite mantra) striver and achiever (I’m a 3 on the Enneagram, which tells you everything you need to know), but these days my striving looks more like sitting in silence on a park bench, my dog at my feet, as I slowly learn to let go of the false selves that have formed my identity for decades and lean toward uncovering who God created me to be.

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